Before I saw this supernatural 70s flick, I wasn’t sure what a manitou was. After seeing it, I’m still not sure what it is. All I know is that it sometimes means that a 400 year old Indian mystic grows out of an expanding lump on the back of Susan Strasberg’s neck and only Tony Curtis and a medicine man played by Michael Ansara can stop it from destroying the world. A manitou can also possess old ladies to throw themselves down flights of stairs and make snow fall in hospital corridors. Its weaknesses are having typewriters thrown at it and laser beams 
that topless women shoot out of their hands. I think that covers it.
This belongs on the shortlist of oddball low-budget horror paycheck jobs for faded stars. It also features Burgess Meredith, Ann Sothern, Jeanette Nolan and hardly one scene that makes any sense. Perfect late night viewing. Based on Graham Masterton’s first novel. This was the final film from drive-in mainstay director William Girdler, who died, at age 30, in a helicopter accident a few months before the movie came out.